On Friday I began using chart configurations that were not so much changed as they were "finessed," emphasizing the reliance on certain graphics while actually deleting others. I keep thinking I'm not likely to make any additional changes, but this time it could very well turn out to be true, given the level of satisfaction I experienced at the close of Friday's activity. In seeking to upload an illustrative example Forex chart to a thread started by a contributor who claimed to have found a so-called holy grail to Nadex binary options, I stumbled on a tactic that looked even better than the strategies I was using on Friday, and just now coded the corresponding alert so I won't have to monitor the charts myself when looking to implement it. I like this indicator better than the one I coded on Tuesday and plan to primarily use it to select binary option strike prices where the statistical odds of their leading to successful outcomes is very high, though I suspect I can also use it to realize decent gains trading in a traditional Forex account provided the stakes per trade are large enough. (I have opted not to plot the graphics on the above chart which signal when the peak of the corresponding crest or the nadir of the applicable trough has been formed, since they would reveal greater detail than I wish to share.)
Continuing on the same theme, I coded a five-minute version of the above alert based on the same basic principle, but with a subtle adjustment. In comparing it with the one-minute indicator, I think I like it better in that it "sounds the alarm" closer to the corresponding pullback. Moreover, it identified one buy opportunity that was not identified by its one-minute cousin. Granted, the one minute variant identified a possible sell opportunity that was not suggested by the five-minute, but that short position would have taken a much longer time to fully unfold than I typically want to wait before exiting a trade, so in a way, I would have preferred that the five-minute indicator skip over it... One other thing... the five-minute signal always gave me one alert per opportunity, unlike the one-minute version, which sometimes went off two or even three or four times per a given event (which is a real annoyance).
Yet another nuance to the same basic idea, but unlike the previous two alerts, the idea for an alarm that I got this morning DOES tell me to enter a position immediately upon its appearance and is not merely a signal to watch for the next available pullback-and-reverse maneuver... This comparison indicator is not meant to serve as an aide in selecting binary option strike prices, but is designed to reap immediate profits, either from trading Nadex knock-outs or from trading a traditional Forex brokerage account (or both).
So then, this was the last idea I had for how the alert might be made a little bit better and is the one I plan to test at the beginning of this week...
I spent much of today zeroing in on the precise measures that get to the heart of the matter and recording them in my notebook. I categorized the indicators into global, flow and money measures, and then made a chart to facilitate committing them to memory. But then when I went back and compared them to what I wrote least week, the details (for the commodities) we very different. So tomorrow I'll compare last week's charts to the ones from today visually to determine what's going on.
In comparing yesterday's gold chart to the one from last week, I discovered they were not as dissimilar as my notes would have suggested. I did like yesterday's better however, so I made just a couple of improvements based on two aspects of last week's configuration that I favored, and will use the resulting composite going forward...
I spent yesterday zeroing in on what were the absolute best (most helpful) features on each of my charts, and deleting the rest, so I never got around to testing the above alert. I'm putting the "final" touches on my charts this morning, but I DID nonetheless manage to pop open my Forex charts and make a couple of trades based on Sunday's signal (which is how I actually named it) and this one is a keeper! I entered the positions about 30-minutes before expiry, and by the end of that period, they were both WAY in-the-money.
The silver charts were basically the same as well. My crude oil chart opted for a more stable two-hour foundation over last week's 90 minutes and stripped away a ton of superfluous indicators/graphics. The natural gas chart turns out to be vastly different from last week's, though once again by stripping away a ton of superfluous graphics, making what is probably the best strategy for trading the fuel abundantly clear.
I made only one adjustment to my (Forex) trading protocol this morning and later coded the 5-minute indicator pictured below to match it. It is another alert of the "I'm drawing your attention to a potential trade setup so you can enter a position as price exits the next pullback, if you so choose" variety. Several of the signals are essentially moot, because I'm likely to already be in a position at the time that they appear/paint.
TRADING THE USA INDICES Satisfied with what I'm able to do with the chart configurations that emerged as a result of embarking on a quest around the middle of March to explore the possibility of trading the four commodities offered by Nadex, I'm now returning to the major U.S. indices after ignoring them for perhaps six months or so. Though the indices offer opportunities to accumulate profits very quickly, they do the same with respect to losses, and given my disdain for drawdowns of any kind, they are not a particularly attractive asset class from my perspective. Nonetheless, if I can duplicate with the indexes what I'm able to do with foreign currency pairs, gold, silver, crude oil and natural gas, it could theoretically increase the growth rate of my trading account exponentially, so here goes nothing… For now, I'm attributing "control" of the intraday trend to ten minutes, as represented by the corresponding (yellow) price flow channel at 0.03% deviation, and confirmed by the 13-minute price range envelope at 0.07% deviation. However, because of the crazy price action characteristic of the indexes, trusting this trend can be dangerous. So, though this measure is "in command," unlike the five instruments previously mentioned (where it makes since to monitor anything from the 4¼- to 8½-minute short-term trends) the "money measure" in this context is the ONE-MINUTE baseline! Accordingly, I might stay with a given position for less than ten seconds, or for more than two or three hours—entering when the one-minute price flow begins moving in sync with the slope of the ten-minute channel, and exiting as soon as it (or for sure, when the two- and/or six-minute measures) turn against it. And yet, the only time I want to do this is when the potential payout is likely to be worth it. So, when is that? (Oh yeah...and it also needs to cover the spread.) Here is what I propose… The only time I should put on a trade is when the one-minute envelope at 0.01% deviation is "riding" the (indigo) six-minute envelope at 0.04% deviation, forcing its upper band north or its lower band south, or when it is actually outpacing the measure. Moreover, I should NEVER still be in a trade when the one-minute channel is positioned on the contrarian side of the six-minute baseline! (Note: Make sure the upper or lower band of the indigo six-minute measure is outside the interior of the yellow ten-minute channel.) (Of course, given the danger these assets pose, I will of course first test this proposition/scheme via my demo account.)